The Screaming Skull Read online

  After a time, I suspected that it might be a relic, which gave me a small thrill; an encounter with one of those ancient and powerful magical items can make a career. Sure, to carry out its requisite destruction and save the Woerth—usually by flinging it into the inevitable volcano, crevasse, or magical cave—entails a long and arduous journey haunted by war, mind-melting horror, and the constant specter of death. So what? A relic is your ticket to fortune and glory. Simply hire some ink-stained scribe to write your trilogy—for some reason, it’s always a trilogy—and hit the speaking circuit. An illusionist might even option the rights and create a big-budget shadow play to immortalize you forever. Who wouldn’t risk certain death to make a little scratch?

  If the skull was a relic, then I needed to know, pronto. That need brought me to Jaspin, who was the only high-level adventurer I knew. When I showed it to him, that first time in the Suds ‘n Shade, he gave a convincing performance as a guy who had no idea what the hell the thing was.

  “But why me?” I asked Jaspin. “What does it want?”

  “Why not you?” asked Lithaine.

  “Go piss on a blue dragon, ass-hat,” I said.

  Lithaine, Amabored, and Redulfo kept their distance from me at the other end of the bar. As far as I knew, Jaspin was doing me a huge solid; word of my troubles had hit the street, and the moment I stepped through the door, every man-jack inside the bar walked out. Even the kobolds gave me a wide berth.

  “Curses and enchantments are often one link in a larger chain of magic,” Jaspin said. “Have you any other relics that it might be reacting to? Perhaps a magical scepter? A piece of magical armor or clothing that you found on your travels?”

  “Not at all,” I said, lying through my teeth. I thought of the girdle, of course, but what the hell did it have to do with this skull? That was my business. “I haven’t seen so much as a plus-one blade.”

  Curious.” Jaspin picked up the skull. He stroked his beard and peered into its eye-sockets. “You should give it a name.”

  “You can call it Aloysius if you want. If this thing doesn’t shut the fuck up, then I’m done for.”

  “I’m afraid he really is,” said Redulfo.

  “Perhaps the same force that sparked the Chaos hordes to move south again has also activated its powers—hello… what’s this?” asked Jaspin. Holding up the glass, he peered through it into the left eye-socket, then motioned me over to look as well. Deep inside the eye socket I saw, outlined in the tiniest of ruby-red jewels, a rune:

  <

  “That’s the same rune carved onto the box this thing came in,” I said. “What is it?”

  “It’s the old dwarf tongue. The rune Kaunan,” Jaspin said. “Kaunan means pestilence.”

  Ominous shadows filled the tavern. The temperature plummeted.

  “Knock it off, Redulfo,” I said.

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s Koschei’s rune,” said Jaspin.

  “Koschei!?!” We all cried out simultaneously. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I added.

  He wasn’t fucking kidding me, as it turned out. It was the second time in two weeks I had heard that accursed name uttered in my presence. Six hundred or so years ago, the wizard Koschei of the Verdant Vale, the legends told, once ruled his lands as a noble philosopher-king. Koschei was a Twentieth-Level sorcerer, a man of staggering intellect, rich in wisdom, his vision far-reaching and true. His personal interests led revolutions in alchemy, architecture, astrology, magic, and medicine. Koschei’s reign coincided with a golden age in the Free Kingdoms, the Age of Light, when the dwarfs advanced knowledge of minecraft and weaponry, the elves advanced knowledge of music, art, and philosophy, and the gnomes advanced the twin arts of brewing and marijuana cultivation. What human advances came during this time? Not much, I’ll warrant. Advances in the art of the Seven Deadly Sins?

  The only dark stain on the age: an open Hellmouth, burning on the southern shore of Lake Everdeep—the very one, Melinda believed, that she discovered beneath the Blue Falcon a few months earlier. From this open wound in the Woerth, hellspawn spooged like Lucifer’s money shot across the countryside. No one knew from whence the Hellmouth came. Did the spells of some dark necromancer summon it forth? Or had it always been there, a malignant pimple on the otherwise unblemished face of the Woerth?

  After more than a century of warfare between the Free Kingdoms and the forces of Hellfire—a war that saw Koschei become the primary defender of Woerth against Chaos—Koschei’s only child, the Lady Cataline, was murdered at the direction of Beelzebub, King of the Eighth Circle of Hell. The wizard went mad with grief, and he bent his thaumaturgical arts towards gaining the power to resurrect her. For years, he delved into the arcana, going farther and deeper in his exploration of the Multiverse than any wizard had gone before. To gain the power of resurrection, he had first to conquer Death itself—and so he did, the legends told. Koschei of the Verdant Vale was no more; in his place was Koschei the Deathless, the Dark Foe now allied with Beelzebub in a mad desire to enslave the Woerth. Such power did his black sorcery require that Koschei withered every leaf, flower, blade of grass, and stalk of wheat in his lands. He enslaved his people, dug deep pits beneath his fortresses, and filled them with foul hellspawn. In his quest for vengeance against El, he sent forth his armies to conquer the Free Kingdoms. For six more years, the Dread War raged—until the First Quest cast him down.

  There are, of course, infinite Koscheis scattered throughout the Multiverse: Sauron, Voldemort, Lord Foul, Thulsa Doom, or Vladimir Putin—who gives a fuck? They’re a dime a dozen. There was nothing special about our own Dark Lord, other than the peculiar brand of suffering he caused. Such suffering was fine with us, so long as it was consigned to the sepia-toned past. Only when it became clear that we were going to star in the sequel did we give a shit.

  “The legends tell of the Ten Phylaxes: pieces of Koschei’s physical body, as well as his most powerfully cursed relics,” said Jaspin. “They’ve been scattered these long centuries, lost to time and chance. If ever they are all brought together, then Koschei’s soul will return from the Void, and the Dread War will begin anew.” The illusionist placed his hand on my shoulder. “You, my friend, are in possession of the skull of Koschei the Deathless—the Screaming Skull, legend has named it.”

  I collapsed onto a barstool. My mind was filled with raging turmoil, a river overflowing its banks. No one spoke. Everyone moved farther away from me.

  “Is it worth anything?” Amabored asked, after it was clear that I was too stunned to speak. “This could be our ticket.”

  “Oh, now it’s our ticket?” I cried, snapping out of my stupor. “Fine fucking friend you are!” I turned desperately to Jaspin. “How do I get rid of it? I don’t want the goddamned thing—but every time I try to lose it, it turns up again! For fuck’s sake, don’t tell me I have to toss it into a volcano. I couldn’t bear it.”

  “Why it’s attached itself to you, I can’t say,” Jaspin said, placing the Skull back on the bar. “It will be drawn to other Phylaxes. You say you never saw it before you found it sitting on your nightstand. Quite curious. You’re certain that nothing in your possession might be attracting it?”

  I considered telling Jaspin the whole story—about the girdle, about Melinda finding the Hellmouth, about the devil Malacoda, about Saggon’s child slaves, everything. This was Redhauke, however, and it was best to trust no one, not even a friendly bartender who seemed to have your best interests at heart. Besides, Melinda had sworn me to secrecy. I opted instead to play my hand tight until the illusionist proved a friend.

  “No sir,” I said. “I have no idea where the thing came from, or why I can’t get rid of it. I only know that I want to, as soon as possible.”

  “Why don’t we just go see Sklaar or the Lord Mayor?” Redulfo offered. “They’re the city fathers, aren’t they? We should punt this thing over to men who can handle it.”

  “That sounds about right,” said Lithaine. “It shouldn’t
be any of our business.”

  “Damned straight,” said Amabored.

  “I’d advise against it,” Jaspin said. “At least, not yet. There are forces searching for these Phylaxes. They have spies everywhere, some of them highly placed, and some of them right here in Redhauke. If they find out you have it, they won’t just take it from you—they’ll kill you, just to tie up whatever loose end you represent.”

  “What then?” I asked. “Spend the rest of my life looking at it until I die horribly?”

  Jaspin made a show of considering my options for me. “In the cellar, I have a safe room, which I rent out to adventurers in need of a place to store enchanted items. Inside this room, no sorcery will work. Neither can any magic, no matter how strong, pierce its walls. The room was a gift to me from a sorcerer who valued my counsel. You can store the Skull there. If this room can’t contain its power, then you’re dead already.”

  “Okay—thanks,” I said. “But for how long? Surely you don’t want it down there for a second longer than it needs to be.”

  “I’ll make inquiries. Perhaps Sklaar will know what to do—but before we approach him, we want to make sure that he’s not working to bring Koschei back again.”

  Tension flowing out of my body, I slumped over the bar. I couldn’t trust anyone—but I’d have to trust Jaspin, at least for now. The thought of being rid of that fucking Skull, even for a moment, was sweet ambrosia to my tortured mind. As the Screaming Skull rested ominously on the bar, its black eye sockets seemed to fill my frame of vision until I was lost to the darkness.

  Amabored approached and handed me a beer. “If this doesn’t work,” he said, “and you need somebody to… you know…” He made a slicing motion across his throat.

  “Brother, you’ll be the first one I call.”

  25

  So began my long association with the Ten Phylaxes of Koschei the Deathless. We learned their names soon enough: From the Awful Orbs to the Mace of Malice to the Scythe of Souls, we chased these ten motherfucking MacGuffins from one end of the Multiverse to the other to save the Woerth from Koschei. Our naivety was a liability; had we known that Jaspin was working for the Hand all along, we’d have run him through at the first opportunity. The cocksucker must have tried to turn the Skull over to the Hand that very night, only to find it back in his panic room the next day, which was exactly where it wanted to be. As Jaspin also had to pretend to my father that he was aiding me on the Quest with which Olderon had paid dearly to saddle me, his options were limited—he couldn’t kill me, for instance. There were layers upon layers of bullshit surrounding the Skull, and I would have to eat all of it.

  Back in those innocent days when my only worry was the Screaming Skull—from which I had been momentarily relieved—I had the luxury of concentrating on my own life. The day after my first night with Melinda, I high-tailed it back to the Falcon to lie my ass off to Saggon about what I had discovered. That night, a dozen armed men burst into a room on the top floor of a safe house hidden deep in the Merchant Quarter, the address of which I had provided to Saggon at Melinda’s request. When the door opened, six spring-loaded crossbows unloaded on them, killing four; when the remainder tried to flee, hidden trap doors dropped them into pits filled with twelve-inch spikes. Within the hour, two of Saggon’s larger oafs dragged me into another dungeon deep within the Falcon and shoved my face two inches away from a cauldron of molten lead, at which point I dutifully cried for mercy and swore my oath that I had tracked the woman to that very address.

  So it went until Saggon finally bought what I was selling, and he ordered me to continue boning Melinda as a double-agent. The Over-Boss feigned concern that Melinda still had the Skull, which meant he didn’t dare assault her directly for fear that she had someone poised over a crevasse deep in the Shadow Mountains, ready to toss it into an abyss with one word through the aether. That fear was simply another layer of subterfuge. Jaspin, Saggon’s puppet master, must have suspected that either Melinda or I had another one of the Phylaxes in our possession, which was why he couldn’t get the Skull out of Redhauke to turn it over to the Hand. Everyone was watching everyone else, waiting for someone to tip a hand.

  For my troubles, Saggon even promoted me; I was now a Soldier, Second Class in the Thieves Guild. Imagining Olderon hearing the news, I spent that night inside a whiskey bottle. The promotion also put me in command of Amabored and Lithaine; I imagined giving either of them an order, and then spent the next night there, too.

  Following Melinda’s ambush, she and Saggon thus entered a period of détente. Within Redhauke there stood four main sources of power: the Lord Mayor and his High Council, the Redhauke Guard, the Council of Thaumaturgy, and the Thieves Guild. The three former power centers suffered the latter’s presence because of the tribute Saggon paid in gold, slaves, and contraband. The Over-Boss’s strength, meanwhile, rested in the hands of his five Captains, each of whom oversaw an army of loosely-knit gangs with names like the Energy Vampires, the Piledrivers, Painful Discharge, and Ding-Ding-Here-Comes-the-Shit-Mobile. The Captains supported Saggon with muscle; in return, he gave them political cover. If they should learn that Saggon’s Second—his handpicked successor, who rose from a teenaged message-runner to captain the Merchant Quarter in just ten years—had declared a challenge, then his patrons in the Noble Quarter might murder him simply because they smelled disorder.

  Though no agreement was ever inked or spoken between them, Saggon and Melinda thus found themselves in an uneasy truce. Melinda need only lay low and forgo building an army, and Saggon would forgo trying to waste her—at least until Jaspin gave the order. Meanwhile, I got laid and got to live. My friends, the Tree of Life bears no sweeter fruit.

  As I was quickly learning, however, fruit rots. Despite Melinda’s continued attempts to hijack shipments of children and spirit them safely away from Redhauke, the dam was foreordained to burst—and the following spring, it did. The shipments increased until the lands outside the city were nearly barren of children. We couldn’t figure out why. Saggon knew that Melinda had the Skull; why was he still digging?

  “The devil must be getting hungrier,” Melinda said. “Saggon’s no longer using the children as slaves. They’re just food. If he doesn’t keep feeding Malacoda, it will start to eat souls that matter to him—including his.”

  The five of us—Amabored, Lithaine, Melinda, Redulfo and I—sat nursing beers at the Suds ‘n Shade. It was mid-morning, and the place was mostly empty. Trilecia stood behind the bar polishing candlesticks, paying us no mind; somewhere unbeknownst to us, Jaspin was spying on our conversation. Fucker.

  “What are we supposed to do, kill an Arch-Devil?” Lithaine asked. “We’re only Fourth Level. That thing would use our bones for toothpicks.”

  “What else can we do?” asked Redulfo. “Ask it to go on a diet?”

  “We have to stop it,” said Melinda. “We have no choice.”

  I had heard enough; Melinda’s occasional waxing of my joint was not worth my life. “Are you out of your fucking mind?” I cried. “Forget the dead certainty that we’ll all die horribly. That devil is the only thing stopping up the Hellmouth! We kill it, and this city might be overrun with hellspawn!”

  “Maybe we don’t have to kill it,” Melinda said, forgoing whatever desire she might harbor to shank me in the belly. “Malacoda knows me. He might be willing to treat with me again. While I distract him, some of you can free whatever children are inside. If we can figure out how to do it, someone can open the Hellmouth long enough for us to shove the devil through it and trap him in Hell.”

  “No offense, my lady,” Amabored said as he lit his pipe, “but that’s the most fucked-up plan I’ve ever heard. How are we supposed to know how to open a Hellmouth, let alone close it again? We try that shit, and we’re deader than fried chicken.”

  “Maybe not,” Redulfo said, and so surprised were we to hear him espouse any degree of optimism that we all turned to stare at him. The wizard only blinked like a turtl
e behind his spectacles. “I work in Sklaar’s library, remember? Everything about the original Quest is on record there. If I can find a way to control the Hellmouth, we might have a shot. And here’s another angle—Elberon, if we get the Hellmouth shut again, you can toss the Skull into it while we’re at it. You can rid yourself of that thing for good. The certainty of our deaths notwithstanding, it’s not an impossible plan.”

  The bar fell into silence. Finally, Amabored drained his beer and belched loudly enough to rattle the glassware behind the bar.

  “Fuck it,” he said. “I’m in. It’s just stupid enough to work.”

  Lithaine shrugged. “Why not? It’ll be worth it just to watch Amabored get disemboweled by a devil.”

  Everyone looked to me. I found Melinda’s gaze and saw in her green eyes the certainty that she was going through with the plan, whether I crapped out or not.

  “Okay,” I said, sounding defeat. “I’ve got nothing better to do than die.”

  Melinda took my hand. “This is your chance to be the hero I know you can be,” she said, smiling. “Besides, if you die, then I’ll kill you.”

  “If we’re going to face hellspawn, then we need a professional,” said Amabored. “While Redulfo is geeking out at the library, I’ll try to find us a paladin. Let’s go.”

  We agreed to split up. Melinda and I would purchase supplies for battle, Amabored would rent a paladin, Redulfo would hit the library, and Lithaine would spend the day scouting the Falcon. As we headed for the street, I clapped Redulfo on the shoulder.